By Xinhua
Rio de Janeiro : Google Inc. and the Federal Prosecution Office of Brazil's northeast Ceara state have signed an agreement to remove offensive and illegal contents from the social network website Orkut.
According to the agreement, signed Tuesday, the prosecution office will be able to access an exclusive web page that will help it request the removal of contents regarded as offensive or illegal.
The service will also allow the entity to preserve any kind of information that can be useful to investigation of illegal activities.
Google, which runs Orkut, is committed to drafting a team of employees specialised in fulfilling the office's demands within a day.
In 2006, the Federal Prosecution Office charged Google with not cooperating with police investigations and refusing to provide information on users' profiles and communities hosted by Orkut, almost forcing the US group to close down its office in Brazil.
Google argued that all the data displayed on the website were stored in the company's servers in the US, and was not available to its branch in the country.
Google has signed agreements with prosecution offices in several Brazilian states to facilitate the settlement of problems with the judicial system.
The settlement originally depended on a series of court decisions.